Jay-Z: The [GOP] Can't Handle The Success!

Jay-Z releases a song targeting critics of his trip to Cuba.

The media mogul fires back at critics. After he and pop singer wife Beyonce took a trip to the nation of Cuba, the junk food media got wind of it. It agitated the usual suspects.

Jay-Z appears on Roc-A-Fella Records/Roc Nation, LLC.
Beyonce appears on Columbia Records/Sony Music Group.
Chief Keef appears on Interscope Records.

Well if you're not a hip-hop fan, I would devote my clarification to how Mr. Carter rhymes to the latest topics.

[Intro]
Ladies and gentlemen
Goddamnit
Let this shit knock

[Verse 1]
I done turned Havana to Atlanta
Guayabera shirts and bandanas
Every time you think they got me I switch the planna
Bulletproof this, radio scanners
Ballin' 'til they ban us
You gettin' too much bread, they try to jam you
Boy from the hood but got White House clearance
Sorry y'all, I don't agree with y'all appearance
Politicians never did shit for me
Except lie to me, distort history
Wanna give me jail time and a fine
Fine, let me commit a real crime
I might buy a kilo for Chief Keef
Out of spite, I just might flood these streets
Hear the freedom in my speech
Got an onion from Universal, read it and weep
Would've brought the Nets to Brooklyn for free
Except I made millions off it, you fuckin' dweeb
I still own the building, I'm still keeping my seat
Y'all buy that bullshit, you'd better keep y'all receipt
Obama said "chill, you gonna get me impeached"
But you don't need this shit anyway
Chill with me on the beach

[Hook - Swizz Beatz]
Y'all gon' learn today

[Verse 2]
Ya'll almost want to start a revolution
You know whenever I'm threatened, I start shooting, bark
Catch a body, head to Houston
I'm in Cuba, I love Cubans
This communist talk is so confusing
When it's from China, the very mic that I'm using
Idiot wind, the Bob Dylan of rap music
You're an idiot, baby, you should become a student
Oh, you gonna learn today
Where the fuck have you been
The world's under new management
The new role model, fuck this Zoolander shit

[Hook]

Okay in other words, in the song he acknowledges that he and wife went to Cuba. He's telling his critics: Big deal, Americans travel to Cuba.

Second, if you're thinking about politicians, there's three Florida Republicans who made a fuss about it. One is a hip-hop fan and a potential candidate for president. A handful of conservative agitators and it was posted by That Guy Who Throws Shit On The Wall.

Third, Jay-Z saying that Obama told him to chill or it will get him impeached. The conservative media was agitated that the rapper endorsed the president. The president feared that Jay-Z's history as a former drug dealer would be a play for the "race card" by Republican operatives. Jay-Z is basically saying that President Barack Obama should ignore the critics about their friendship.

Lastly, he saying that he's an owner of a NBA team. Something that King Hippo would never be. The conservative agitator wanted to be part owner of the St. Louis Rams, a NFL team. There was a huge outcry to have him removed as a potential buyer. The conservative agitator bailed out on the deal.

The shoutout to Chicago based rapper Chief Keef is basically because he's growing in popularity. Keef is an 18-year old rapper who openly endorses the drug and gun culture. He embraces gang violence, sexism, and commercialism. Keef is an extremely controversial figure in hip-hop.

Jay-Z and Beyonce are the biggest supporters of President Barack Obama. The junk food media has always made note of the "lip sync" at the inauguration, the Cuban vacation, the "I Be On" song and their child Blue Ivy.

But what else could those critics say about the Carters?

Oh, the release of the song became a question at the White House. Press Secretary Jay Carney had to waste a portion of his time answering a non-relevant question from a reporter at The Politico. Hence the term, junk food media!

Jay-Z & Beyonce Celebrate Anniversary In Cuba!

Get the siren, Drudge: The Carters are in Havana.

Jay-Z appears on Roc-A-Fella Records/RocNation.
Beyonce appears on Columbia Records/Sony Music Group.

That guy who throws shit to the wall hoping it will stick, the turd flipper, King Hippo, and that guy who helped Obama win will be complaining about it soon.

Since Jay-Z and Beyonce are the biggest supporters of President Barack Obama, the conservative agitating and the remaining portions of the junk food media will complain about them being "communist" and "traitors".

Seeing they've celebrated five years of marriage, the couple goes to Cuba to celebrate with paparazzi in toe.

The couple had to wear bulletproof vest due to the security restrictions and the Cuba's customs on celebrity travels. The couple usually carries a high volume of security members.

But since when is it not allowed to travel to Cuba?

Didn't the president sign an executive order lifting travel restrictions to Cuba?

Anyway, two Florida Republican lawmakers want to have the U.S. State Department look into the matter!

Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart have written a letter to Adam Szubin, director of the United States’ Office of Foreign Assets Control, seeking information on the type of licence the pair of stars received for their travel to Cuba. The Caribbean Journal reports the two representatives were totally pissed and are demanding an investigation into the matter.

The letter wrote by the two included here:

Dear Director Szubin:

We write to express concern and to request information regarding the highly publicized trip by U.S. musicians Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (Beyoncé) and Shawn Carter (Jay-Z) to Cuba. We would like to respectfully request, within all applicable rules and guidelines, information regarding the type of license that Beyoncé and Jay-Z received, for what purpose, and who approved such travel.

As you know, U.S. law expressly prohibits the licensing of financial transactions for “tourist activities” in Cuba (Section 910(b)(1) of the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act). If these individuals were given people-to-people licenses, we would like to bring to your attention the Cuba Travel Advisory issued by OFAC on July 25, 2011 which states, “OFAC only licenses People-to-People Groups that certify that all participants will have a full-time schedule of educational exchange activities that will result in meaningful interaction between the travelers and individuals in Cuba.” These restrictions are in place because the Cuban dictatorship is one of four U.S.-designated state sponsors of terrorism with one of the world’s most egregious human rights records. Cuba’s tourism industry is wholly state-controlled; therefore, U.S. dollars spent on Cuban tourism directly fund the machinery of oppression that brutally represses the Cuban people.

Despite the clear prohibition against tourism in Cuba, numerous press reports described the couple’s trip as tourism, and the Castro regime touted it as such in its propaganda. We represent a community of many who have been deeply and personally harmed by the Castro regime’s atrocities, including former political prisoners and the families of murdered innocents. The restrictions on tourism travel are common-sense measures meant to prevent U.S. dollars from supporting a murderous regime that opposes U.S. security interests at every turn and which ruthlessly suppresses the most basic liberties of speech, assembly, and belief. We support the Cuban people by refusing to sustain their jailers.

Thank you very much for your assistance in this important matter and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Mario Diaz-Balart

Member of Congress Member of Congress

US citizens are permitted to travel to Cuba only under certain licences, such as people-to-people travel or educational endeavors.

“We would like to respectfully request, within all applicable rules and guidelines, information regarding the type of licence that Beyoncé and Jay-Z received, for what purpose, and who approved such travel,” the lawmakers wrote.

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida) and Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Florida) are pissed that Jay-Z and Beyonce traveled to Cuba for their anniversary.

“If these individuals were given people-to-people licenses, we would like to bring to your attention the Cuba Travel Advisory issued by OFAC on July 25, 2011 which states, ‘OFAC only licenses People-to-People Groups that certify that all participants will have a full-time schedule of educational exchange activities that will result in meaningful interaction between the travelers and individuals in Cuba,’” they wrote.

Jay-Z and Beyonce in Havana, Cuba.

Both Members of Congress have been longtime critics of Cuba’s government.

The two said that, because Cuba’s tourism industry is “wholly state-owned,” “US dollars spent on Cuban tourism directly fund the machinery of oppression that brutally represses the Cuban people.”

In other words, we're pissed that two celebrities who openly endorsed President Barack Obama went to Cuba. So that makes the president a "communist", right?

Jay-Z and Beyonce, have fun. Ignore the haters!

I'm coming to the conclusion that conservatives are worthless and their fussing and screaming amounts to little or no action from the progressives. It's time to hit them where it hurts. We need to get more active in politics to stop the Republicans and their allies in the conservative movement. They're still stuck on Reagan and the 20th Century. If you're a progressive/liberal, you want progress to move forward.

There's no need to hide from the hate mongering of those who spent their lives trying to divide us! Loserville and the guy who sticks shit on the wall hoping it will stick have failed, and hopefully the Republicans see it! They need to cut the vein and move to the middle. Keep being conservative and all, but drop the racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, anti-choice, and condescending rhetoric and maybe you'll win elections!

The race card is burning a hole in the Republican Party's donors pockets.

In other non-story news, two more Democrats come out in favor of gay marriage. Indiana's Joe Donnelly and North Dakota's Heidi Heitkamp got the message. These two came from states that perennial loser Mitt Romney won! These two are slightly conservative. Unlike West Virginia's Joe Manchin who got his head up some dude's ass!

Democrats were warned by their rich liberal allies that if they don't support gay marriage, immigration reform and allow cuts to domestic programs, they'll suffer at the ballot box.

Fox News leaves false report on Haiti uncorrected By Daniel Tencer

January 25th, 2010
By Daniel Tencer, reporter The Raw Story

Fox News is staying silent after bloggers and commentators criticized the news network for a January 13 report on its Web site that stated Cuba was "absent" from global aid efforts in Haiti.

Observers note that the communist country was, in fact, one of the first to arrive after the earthquake that is now estimated to have taken the lives of 200,000 people. That has led some bloggers to accuse Fox of using the devastation in Haiti to propagandize against Cuba.

In an online news story entitled "US Spearheads Global Response to Haiti Earthquake," Fox reported that "one geographically close country is conspicuously absent from the roster of helping hands. Cuba, which had evacuated some of its residents as a precaution in case the earthquake triggered a tsunami, has so far not offered any assistance publicly to its devastated island neighbor."

"The opposite is the case," reports Tony Iltis at Green Left Online. "At the time the earthquake struck, Cuba already had 344 doctors and paramedics working in Haiti. Also, in the past 12 years 450 young Haitians have graduated as doctors from Cuban colleges, free of charge."

Iltis reported:

From January 13, more teams of Cuban health workers, accompanied by Haitian medical students studying in Cuba, began arriving in Haiti with medical supplies.

A January 12 Granma article said that, within a week of the earthquake: “Cuban doctors in the Haitian capital [had held] 13,418 consultancies, with 1,078 operations, more than 550 of them considered major surgery. The Cuban doctors have also assisted 38 births.”

Notably, on the same day that Fox published its report, the network also ran an article from the Associated Press that stated, "Cuba, which already had hundreds of doctors in Haiti, treated injured in field hospitals."

Fox doesn't appear to have corrected the error. As of press time, the network had not responded to Raw Story's repeated requests for comment.

For nearly two weeks media watchdogs have been complaining that Fox News has been minimizing its coverage of the Haiti earthquake. MediaMatters reported that, in the first full day after the earthquake -- Jan. 13 -- MSNBC devoted 20 times as much time to Haiti as Fox News, and on January 14, the ratio was roughly five to one.

But other observers say the lack of coverage is more widespread than Fox News. Freelance journalist Dave Lindorff reported last week that Cuba was commonly overlooked when US news outlets reported on international aid efforts.

Far from “doing nothing” about the disaster as the right-wing propagandists at Fox-TV were charging, Cuba has been one of the most effective and critical responders to the crisis, because it had set up a medical infrastructure before the quake, which was able to mobilize quickly and start treating the victims.

If Cuba is to share any blame for the misconception that it's doing nothing, it may be that the government in Havana simply didn't put out a press release fast enough. A Jan. 13 article in Granma, the Cuban state-run publication, didn't mention Cuban relief efforts. That led bloggers to post the article as proof Cuba was absent from the rescue effort.

But news of the country's efforts is slowly beginning to trickle into the United States. On Monday, NPR reported that "the day after the earthquake struck the Cuban doctors reopened two hospitals. Since the Cubans live in the poorest neighborhoods amongst the most disadvantaged Haitians they were actually the first responders."

Note: Fox News didn't cover the Haiti telethon.